England ODI Captain Eoin Morgan Bats for 100-ball Tournament

England batsman Eoin Morgan is of the opinion that English cricket needs to accept change if they want to keep the sport alive. Morgan, according The Guardian, says that a simplified scoring system will help attract those who haven’t already been initiated in the sport.

Speaking about the much discussed 100-ball tournament from 2020, the England ODI captain believes being rigid is only going to create more obstacles for the game.

Morgan said: “Participation levels have been going down and we need to do something different to change the sport’s reputation and the perceived barriers. If we stay rigid and don’t change then the sport will die.”

“One of the most complicated things is if you go to a cricket ground and don’t know what’s going on, you look at the scoreboard for an indication but there’s so many numbers and names. So you eliminate that part of the equation and break it down to its simplest form.”

Morgan might be a centrally contracted player in the books of the ECB, but the 31-year old is well known for being an independent thinker who does not hold back, quite like his decision to skip the 2016 tour of Bangladesh owing to security concerns.

Morgan was one of the three players who were consulted before The Hundred’s announced their plans last week along with his women’s counterpart, Heather Knight, and Worcestershire’s Daryl Mitchell, the chairman of the Professional Cricketers’ Association.

Miscommunication between the ECB and the PCA has left the latter frustrated and the two parties will now meet in May. The PCA are expected to demonstrate with videos, how The Hundred will be different.

Morgan added: “The Hundred sounds different. I have a lot of friends outside cricket who would never come to a match but have already said they enjoy that there is a bit of noise around it, because it’s upsetting people that already come to a game and that is the point of the product.”